Moon landing hoax
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Tens of thousands of people worked on the Apollo project at NASA and a variety of contractors. There were also many people around the world working peripherally on the project e.g. relay stations in Australia and Spain. Anyone who came forward to demonstrate it was a hoax would become rich and famous. This has not happened. | Tens of thousands of people worked on the Apollo project at NASA and a variety of contractors. There were also many people around the world working peripherally on the project e.g. relay stations in Australia and Spain. Anyone who came forward to demonstrate it was a hoax would become rich and famous. This has not happened. | ||
| − | The moon landings took place at the height of the cold war and transmissions came from the surface of the moon. These were picked up all over the world including by the Soviet Union. It is likely the Soviet Union would have mentioned that the signals were not coming from the moon. | + | The moon landings took place at the height of the cold war and transmissions came from the surface of the moon. These were picked up all over the world including by the Soviet Union. It is likely the Soviet Union would have mentioned that the signals were not coming from the moon. |
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| + | In an effort to counter this rather gaping hole in the conspiracy theory, true hoax believers claim that the Soviets were bribed in secret with a large grain shipment. But there are a number of reasons why this is obviously fallacious: | ||
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| + | #It is difficult to believe that this bribe would have lasted 40 years. | ||
| + | #It is especially difficult to believe that the information remained secret with the fall of the Soviet Union and other eastern European communist states. | ||
| + | #It would seem patently absurd secretly prop the Soviet Union up with vast amounts of free grain while at the same time spend even more money on a faked moon shot to publicly humiliate the same entity. | ||
== Physical arguments against the conspiracy theory. == | == Physical arguments against the conspiracy theory. == | ||
Revision as of 18:00, 24 June 2009
| B U L L "If you are in possession of this revolutionary secret of science, why not prove it and be hailed as the new Newton? Of course, we know the answer. You can't do it. You are a fake." |
The moon landing hoax refers to the belief of a small, but persistent, percentage of people who think that the Apollo moon landings of the late 60's and 70's were propaganda films produced by NASA in pursuit of humiliating the U.S.S.R. in the cold war.
Some believe that men never went to space at all, save for perhaps low orbital flights, while others think we may have eventually succeeded, but the original claims dating to July 20 1969 of a moon landing were false.
While there are small evidences that they claim makes their case, these are easily explained, and overwhelmed by the body of evidence that we have, indeed, been to space and left trash on the moon just as at the top of Everest.
The moon landing hoax has reached the level of being a pop-culture meme, much in the way JFK assassination theories are. A TV commercial plays off it, by having the actual astronauts on the moon drink an energy beverage and become unable to do their jobs. Tag line: "Come on back, we'll have to shoot it all in a studio down here".
Contents |
Variety of conspiracy beliefs.
There is, in fact, no single Moon landing conspiracy belief. There are several depending on the believers' gullibility or desire to believe.
Flat Earth Belief
In this belief the astronauts never left the Earth, as flat earthers believe space travel to be impossible, and the whole thing was filmed on the ground. Charles Johnson, president of the Flat Earth society described the Space Shuttle as "a joke", claiming that he has observed bits falling off it in testing which prove that it can't really go into space. Presumably, he thinks the same of high altitude airliners such as Concorde, which can also see the curvature of the Earth.
No Orbit Belief
This group believes that the earth is in fact spherical (so far, so sane), but that no astronauts ever went into orbit. Rockets that were launched were either unmanned or crashed into the sea. Slightly more plausible than Flat-Earthers but this does imply a very expensive hoax.
Only Orbit Belief
This group believes that the astronauts only went into orbit around the earth. This level of conspiracy theory relies on the "fact" that space is filled with radiation, which would have rendered in inhospitable to the astronauts.
Moon Orbit Belief
This group believes that that NASA went to the moon but only to orbit it. Quite why NASA would stop here and fake the rest is anyone's guess.
Landed But Later Belief
These people think the earlier landings were faked, however, by some time in the seventies NASA finally managed to get there.
Moon Alien Belief
This group believes that NASA went to the moon but the things they saw there were so incredible that they had to doctor the photographs to hide the evidence of alien civilizations. As usual with this kind of conspiracy theory, a logical reason has never been given for anyone wanting to conceal such a profitable discovery.
A similar, but slightly less insane, subgroup of this postulates that the moon landings did happen, but the footage was so poor that it was re-recorded on Earth, thus explaining the "evidence" of forgery without the incredulous claims associated with a full hoax, such as the vast expense at faking the launches and keeping everyone quiet.[1]
Moon Landing Belief
This group swallowed hook, line, and sinker the low quality video footage propaganda released by NASA (and covered up by the U.S.S.R. in return for wheat subsidies) and actually thinks that men walked on the Moon and returned to Earth unharmed. What gullible fools!
Moon Landing Hoax Hoax
This group believes that the moon landing hoax was itself a hoax, to cover up the fact that Chinese filmmakers had successfully filmed a "moon landing" video before NASA. The CIA intercepted the video, dubbed it into English,[2] and broadcast it to the world.[3]
Logical arguments against the conspiracy theory.
Tens of thousands of people worked on the Apollo project at NASA and a variety of contractors. There were also many people around the world working peripherally on the project e.g. relay stations in Australia and Spain. Anyone who came forward to demonstrate it was a hoax would become rich and famous. This has not happened.
The moon landings took place at the height of the cold war and transmissions came from the surface of the moon. These were picked up all over the world including by the Soviet Union. It is likely the Soviet Union would have mentioned that the signals were not coming from the moon.
In an effort to counter this rather gaping hole in the conspiracy theory, true hoax believers claim that the Soviets were bribed in secret with a large grain shipment. But there are a number of reasons why this is obviously fallacious:
- It is difficult to believe that this bribe would have lasted 40 years.
- It is especially difficult to believe that the information remained secret with the fall of the Soviet Union and other eastern European communist states.
- It would seem patently absurd secretly prop the Soviet Union up with vast amounts of free grain while at the same time spend even more money on a faked moon shot to publicly humiliate the same entity.
Physical arguments against the conspiracy theory.
- A large quantity of Moon rock was brought back by the missions. Many international scientists have spent entire careers studying the stuff. If they could prove it did not come from the moon they would be rich.
- A transponder was left on the moon which is still in use to measure the Moon's distance from the Earth.
- A set of retroflectors, mirrors meant to be targets for ranging lasers, were placed on the Moon. These retroflectors have been used by relatively independent parties.
- Close up images of dust being kicked up by the astronauts on the moon shows that it falls parabolically as expected in a vacuum. If the moon landings were shot on a soundstage on Earth, the dust would float around in the air before falling to the ground[4].
- The biggest watchdog of the era (i.e., the Soviet Union) had every telescope with a camera peeled on the lunar module as it descended to the lunar surface. Had NASA faked it, the world would have known.
See also
External links
- Misbegotten Moon—a video that makes fun of much of the logic of conspiracy theories, and the techniques used by conspiracy theory "exposé films".
- An excellent parody of the typical MLH site is here!
Footnotes
- ↑ This is pretty much the most weak-ass conspiracy theory ever.
- ↑ Thus proving that the CIA are a bunch of posers. Real fans prefer the subtitled version.
- ↑ A webcomic said it, so it must be true.
- ↑ It is expected that the theorists will claim that the government possesses some state-of-the-art vacuum chambers and anti-gravitational devices.